Yesterday, I sent an email to our friends at Voice of the Family, the lay organisation that was set up to communicate the concerns of the international pro-life and pro-family movements. I asked:

I do have one official, above-ground question for Voice of the Family, for publication: Was abortion and its effects on the family worldwide substantively addressed at the Synod at any time? If so, by whom?

Hilary White

This afternoon, I received a response that was as brief as it was devastating, and perhaps the best proof I’ve seen so far that the entire “Synodal process” is a complete, unmitigated sham:

“Abortion does not seem to appear in any of the small groups reports. This is a startling omission given that it is arguably one of the gravest threats to individual families in the world at any given time of human history.”

The most recent very broad estimates that I have seen say that about 50 million people are killed by direct abortion around the world every year.

Every year.

What does the death of 50 million people even look like?

What do we imagine that 50 million deliberate murders a year is doing to the people perpetrating those crimes?

What does it mean that this appalling mass slaughter, that has turned the whole world into a charnel house, did not merit a mention in any of the deliberations of 270 bishops of the Catholic Church convened to discuss the future of the family?

Go to What’s up with the synodfor a recording of the 1st movement of Henryk Górecki’s Symphony of Sorrowful Songs with which Hilary poignantly ends her post.

I work in post-abortion ministry, training priests and counselors, and conducting individual and group pastoral ministry. I also try to educate the faithful. Nobody wants to hear. Not the Catholic counselors: “We are too diverse!” they say, as if that is a reason not to learn how abortion hurts the family. Not the clergy. “We give Confession. They just need to believe.” Not the people, who want a quick and easy Jesus with a quick and easy emotional fix at the latest spiritual fad weekend. One thing I would like to describe to them is how abortion hurts the family. The post-abortion unions. The unions that abort. The sibling children. The parents of the abortive couple. The lies and secrets that sit in the heart of the family, between each member and the other, between generations, between mind and heart of the same person. The deformation of spirituality. The deformation of parish life. The deformation of ministry. When one man is overwhelmed at the memory of realizing at age 8 that his mother used the pill, and seeing the root of the destabilization and insecurity that realization gave him for the next 40 years, do you think the knowledge of abortion, just the very knowledge of its existence, cannot be a hundred times more explosive for a child? But because it is so explosive, it is deeply buried, in protection of the parents and in lifelong attempt to be worthy of existence. I am sick to death, sick to death, of the ignoring of abortion in Catholic life. The clergy are like ER docs who will only treat minor lacerations. They deny anything else exists, or think it is normal and hire the raving wounded to work in the ER as paramedics.

Prayer for life by Saint John Paul II

O Mary, bright dawn of the new world,

Mother of the living, to you do we entrust the cause of life.

Look down, O Mother, upon the vast numbers of babies not allowed to be born, of the poor whose lives are made difficult, of men and women who are victims of brutal violence, of the elderly and the sick killed by indifference or out of misguided mercy.

Grant that all who believe in your Son may proclaim the Gospel of life with honesty and love to the people of our time.

Obtain for them the grace to accept that Gospel as a gift ever new, the joy of celebrating it with gratitude throughout their lives and the courage to bear witness to it resolutely, in order to build, together with all people of good will, the civilization of truth and love, to the praise and glory of God, the Creator and Lover of life.

Taken from Pope John Paul II’s 1995 encyclical, “The Gospel of Life” (www.vatican.va)

Our Lady of Guadalupe, Patroness of the Unborn, pray for all victims of abortion. Amen.

17 Responses to Deafening Silence on Abortion at Synod

“When one man is overwhelmed at the memory of realizing at age 8 that his mother used the pill, and seeing the root of the destabilization and insecurity that realization gave him for the next 40 years,”

Extraordinarily precocious little chap, wasn’t he?
We can only pray such sophisticated gynecological l knowledge, acquired at a mere 8 years old, didn’t somehow turn him “Gay,” – during the following 40 years.

Anyone got any clue how many babies are stillborn in a year, or die at birth, or within days? Not that it has the slightest relevance, of course.

Does the enormous number of babies killed in the safety of their own mother’s womb not touch you at all? Or if it doesn’t have an emotional effect, does it not worry you that we as a society have been not only allowing this to take place, but in many respects actually promoting it?

Whether or not you answer ‘yes’ to either of these questions, I suggest that sarcasm and cynicism are perhaps not the most appropriate tones to take in response to this subject.

”What does it mean that this appalling mass slaughter, that has turned the whole world into a charnel house, did not merit a mention in any of the deliberations of 270 bishops of the Catholic Church convened to discuss the future of the family?”

(Sorry I haven’t been in recently but my airline work takes me away a bit.)

The quote exemplifies what I find over many readings here. Is there here a barely suppressed disagreement with the Church and especially our Pope?

Now I am no zealot nor am I expert but this is worrying if true. Please tell me I’m wrong, but if so show me why I’m wrong. Will you ”be true to Thee till death.”?

I thought that to be a Catholic without compromise meant following the teachings of the Church. I hope there is no schism lurking like a rabid dog, waiting to devour us. Reassure me – anyone?

“Toad, Does the enormous number of babies killed in the safety of their own mother’s womb not touch you at all?”
Yes, Michael. I saw my wife holding on a piece of tissue paper, a tiny. miscarried baby that would have been our first. Not aborted, just dead by “accident,” I suppose. But that’s all right, isn’t it? No problem there. Accidents will happen. We got over it. Had three more. All fine.

Cloister (15:46) – It’s hard to say on which side of the cloister fence you stand when it comes to disagreements with the Pope. Similarly, it’s difficult to pin down where your allegiance lies when you say “Now I am no zealot…” As for your hope that “there is no schism lurking like a rabid dog…”, that’s a question better put to the likes of Forte, Baldisserri, Danneels, Kasper, Soup-Itch, and Rosica the Rosicrucian from Rochester, and one that you’ll have time to formulate during your next long haul flight from the cloister to Rochester.

Great comments from Michael (in response to Toad) and JH (in response to Cloister). 🙂

I absolutely agree with Hilary White that it is alarming that the staggering figures for the horrific crime of abortion (when abortion is so closely linked to issues surrounding the family) appears to have been all but ignored at the Synod!

It is also strange and disconcerting that St John Paul II’s 1995 encyclical, “The Gospel of Life”, and his outstanding, “Theology of the Body”, (among other of his pertinent and wonderful documents about the family) also appear to have had little look in during the discussions here. Could this possibly be because some of the cardinals and bishops taking part have not even read them? (Or worse! Perhaps there are those that have read them, but found their teachings do not fit in with their own distorted views – Danneels? Kasper? Marx? Cupich? – so prefer to discard them instead!!)

Cloister: You say that I avoid the issue. Not sure what “issue” it is that you mean, because your comment at 15:46 yesterday was inscrutable. But let me try:

One big problem – not the only one – coming down the pipe from this synod is the possible (I’d say probable) devolution of authority on doctrinal matters to national bishops conferences. The mind boggling implications of such development have been articulated on this and other blogs by better minds than mine.

The progressive toytown theocrats who basically ran this synod from the get-go (with the support of Pope Francis) are waving their hands and saying: No, no, no – all we’re suggesting are some procedural, pastoral and disciplinary reforms – there will be no change to or harm done to Christian doctrine. Orthodox Catholics do not believe them. Orthodox Catholics believe with very good reasons that the progressives really are attacking doctrine. The only charitable thing we can say about the progressive faction is that they are ignoramuses, and it is in no way schismatic to say so.

I didn’t convert to the Canadian Catholic Church, and would never have done, but now it seems I’m in danger of being corralled into such a bastard entity without my consent. If that happens, I shall escape and look for and find the Bride of Christ in the wilderness, just like Athanasius told the early Christians to do when they were oppressed by the Arian heresy.

I thought that to be a Catholic without compromise meant following the teachings of the Church. I hope there is no schism lurking like a rabid dog, waiting to devour us. Reassure me – anyone?

Indeed it is – and that is why there is such concern over influential factions within the Church who wish to subvert those teachings. As to schism waiting like a rabid dog to devour us, I refer you to these remarks by Cardinal Marx earlier in the year:

If schism is coming from anywhere (and I certainly would not discount the occurrence of such a thing) it is being engineered by people like Marx, Cupich, Kasper and Forte – i.e.; people who very much do want compromise (to put it mildly) and very much do not want to follow the teachings of the Church.

Returning to the topic of the post – for anyone who has seen the appalling Amnesty International video narrated by Liam Neeson, I invite you to watch this hilarious parody, which does a great job of exposing the condescending and deceitful nature of the original:

Please visit this site, and sign the petition, to draw attention to the horrifying abortion numbers in the UK as well, and the relatively recent decision of Amnesty International to abandon their original apolitical stance and associate themselves with socially ‘progressive’ political causes such as the pro-abortion campaign:

Thank you for bringing this petition to our attention, Michael. Hopefully many will sign it.

Why on earth is Amnesty International (presumably an organisation aimed at freeing political prisoners) getting involved in the murder of the innocents in the womb?? So they desire freedom for some… and death for the most vulnerable and indefensible, do they?
How selective of them, and how incredibly hypocritical!

Yes, I know, it is bizarre that an organisation set up to provide support and legal advocacy for political prisoners and prisoners of conscience is now lobbying for the right to kill innocent children in the womb. As you say, this is not only bizarre but hypocritical (as is the whole ‘pro-choice’ position) – why rights for some people, but not others?

Unfortunately, a lot of organisations that were originally apolitical are now becoming more and more politicised – Oxfam and the RSPCA are two notable cases that spring to mind. And in every case they have been hijacked by some ‘progressive’ cause or another… seems entryism is not something that is just accidental to leftist/progressivist politics, but a key part of its strategy!